Furry Tape
by AmalaDamarr
Summary: Yeah, so this is about a month late...hahaha. spewed it out over Xmas cause I NEEEEEDED to. Todd is a tragic darling and an incorrigible asshole and Kurt is a humorous sweetheart and a goody-two-shoes, as per usual. One-shot. T for Todd's foul language.


Bells, tinsel and colorful glass balls littered the rooftops and windows of downtown Bayville, blaring cheerful seasonal music and blinding with the sheer amount of lights and reflective ornaments. The people in and around the shops either walked with skips and visible trails of warm laughter or slumped shoulders and disgruntled scowls. Children ran through the snow, kicking up sparkling clouds of white and giggling into their snot-encrusted mittens. Against all the lights, all the city smog, the stars disappeared in the vast blackness above.

A broken ornament lay at Todd's feet. He stared at it a moment, then kicked it off the curb into the street. The sidewalk stretched out on either side of him, seeming so much longer with the sea of loud, red-nosed consumers surrounding him, boxing him in. Todd sighed, watched his breath billow and fade. The green man came up in the lightbox across the street. Todd stepped off the curb, crushing a stray piece of the ornament as he darted ahead of the others crossing with him.

"The hell's everyone doin' out so late Christmas Eve? Y'all should be havin' dinner wit' yo families or somethin'."

Todd glanced at the windows of the shops he passed. With each brightly lit window, the emptiness of his pockets weighed on him. He stuffed his hands into them, gritting his teeth.

Last year, his pockets had been just as empty. They'd been so light, then. So unnoticeable. He hardly noticed Christmas, and he certainly hadn't received or given a gift since before momma left. Momma poured all her love into Christmas, even though the money was scarce. She tried so hard. She'd bought Todd a bike once; it was the last thing he ever got. When he outgrew it, long after she was gone from his life, he took it to the pawn shop and never went back. He spent the money on his first pack of cigarettes.

A man in front of him was smoking. Todd licked his lips. His hands clenched in his pockets, feeling nothing but lint and holes. Then he cracked his knuckles, slinked up behind him. Todd had the crumpled pack of cigs from the man's back pocket in his own before anyone could have known he'd moved his hands at all. A few feet down, nearing the next crosswalk, he filched a woman's lighter as well.

As black clouds filled his lungs, his shoulders lost some of their tension. On each exhale, the creases around his mouth and eyebrows smoothed themselves. But he could still feel the nothing in his pockets. The grimace shone clear through his eyes despite it fading from his face.

Back home, a clumsily wrapped box lay on Todd's bed. Unmarked and out of place, all bright and shiny and strange on top of his disgusting, faded comforter. But he knew who it was from. The bits of blue fur caught between the wrapping and the tape gave it away. He'd awoken to find it at the foot of his bed. He'd stared a long time, then left the room. Came back only to find it still there. Real, then. He never touched it. He left the boardinghouse, headed for the soup kitchen down the way for some breakfast. When he came back that afternoon, it shone brighter than ever in his dingy room. He bit his lip, threw on a few more layers of clothing, and left again without touching it.

Todd stood at his own bedroom door again, quivering from the cold of the town and the apprehension in his gut. His hand shook as he turned the handle. Deep breaths caught and shivered their way out. He stepped inside.

It took a moment for the sob to reach his lips. Once it did, Todd couldn't be bothered to stop himself. He slammed the door behind him, locked it, and threw himself onto his bed, nearly crushing the present box. He held it tightly through his sobbing fit, crumpling the pristine, holly-decorated paper. He gasped, clutched at the collar of his shirt. Veins in his neck and forehead throbbed and pulsed under the strain of his half-muted cries.

"God-fucking-_dammit_, Fuzzy. Damn you to f-fucking _hell_!"

* * *

><p>Sunlight filtered through the holes in Todd's curtains, falling over his limp arms still around the present. His webbed fingers lay threaded in the curls of ribbon at the top. His eyes stared at the holes and stains on the wallpaper, blinks too far apart.<p>

A sound from outside his window made him clutch the box tight once again. A tapping sound came next. He didn't respond. Couldn't. Then the window opened, creaking almost offensively. The footsteps that followed landed light and careful; to Todd, though, they may as well have been gunshots.

The creak of his bedsprings sounded next. Then silence, for a moment.

"You haven't opened it."

"Don't wanna." Todd's voice sounded thick and gravelly. He held the box so close the wrapping burst at the edges. "Don't wanna."

"Why not? It's Christmas, mein Freund!"

A warm, unnatural hand touched his shoulder. He gave a full-body shudder, right down to the webbing on his toes, and a sound escaped his throat before he could stop it.

"Todd? Are you ok?"

Todd didn't answer. He closed his eyes, mashing his face against the box. The hand on his shoulder remained, thumb moving in comforting circles, but he could feel the awkward tension building in the room.

"You sure you don't want to open it?"

After a beat of silence, Todd shook his head, greasy bangs mingling with the ribbon.

"Why'd you do this? I ain't got nothin' for you. Ain't got money. Why you doin' this to me?"

"What...? Todd, I just wanted to give you a present, I don't care if you got me anything or not. I didn't know it would..._upset_ you."

Todd's eyes snapped open. Guilty voice. Sincere voice. Todd could do that, too.

"Don't wanna open it. Don't care what it is. It's a _present._ I don't..."

He trailed off. His brows knitted and he forced himself to sit up, box still held to his chest. But he would not face the other boy.

"Don't care if it's a goddamn dog turd with a ribbon, Kurt. You snuck in here to give me a goddamn present for Christmas, and I ain't even expected you to think about me at all. We ain't even supposed to be _friends_. But you did this anyway. The Toad don't get presents, yo, the Toad gets forgotten and you're fuckin' that up-"

Todd's voice cracked. He hunched over his gift, not caring about the corners digging into his skin. Then his head shot up and he finally looked at Kurt. His face tried to convey anger, but he felt it morphing with lostness and a strange happiness that hurt his chest.

"Fuckin' _me_ up, Fuzzy, and I wanted to get you somethin' back but I fuckin' can't and you're a goddamn asshole for makin' me care!"

Kurt's bottom lip disappeared under gleaming white fangs, his yellow eyes wide. Todd watched him sift through his expressions. Hurt, confusion, shock. Then his face twisted itself into concentration. Recognition. He stared at Todd, like he was seeing him for the first time. Todd swallowed his heart back down into his chest, where it continued to beat too hard, too fast. He bit back a scream as Kurt pulled him into a close embrace, the box caught between them.

"Todd, I don't want anything from you, I told you that. If you don't want to open it, it's ok. But you _are_ my friend, and none of my friends go without a gift on Christmas."

Kurt let him go and moved to cross the room to the window. His tail twitched behind him. Todd watched that instead of Kurt's back. His body buzzed from the lost contact.

"I got that for you because I thought you might need it. I guess you must not have gotten a gift in a long time. But if that's the case, I especially want you to have one now. It it will be put to better use open, ja? Just saying. I'll see you later."

He 'ported away in a puff of foul-smelling purple smoke, and Todd could only stare at the spot where his tail had been a moment more before his eyes fell to the box in his hands. It looked worse for wear, the ribbon and wrapping disheveled and slightly torn over the now warped cardboard.

"It's pretty much halfway opened anyway."

He tore the paper away slowly, each rip earning him a new nervous twitch in his lips that soon became an uneasy smile. He took a deep breath to settle his heart.

"What am I, a fuckin' five year old? Shit."

He laughed at himself. Only the cardboard stood between him and his gift now. He hesitated a moment. No harm would come of just leaving it in the box. But curiosity got the better of him in the end, and he ripped the box open.

Inside lay a wool sweater, deep green and accented with brown stripes. A very warm, very expensive-looking sweater. Under that, he found gloves to match. And inside one of the gloves, a sleek Zippo lighter, plain shiny silver.

The last thing he found - after gazing dumbfoundedly at his gifts - appeared to be a note at the bottom of the box. Clearly Kurt's own handwriting from the large, awkward scrawl, it read:

_"Frohe Weihnachten, Todd!_

_I hope that this present means no more shivering and burning textbooks. I would like you to be warm without resorting to setting things on fire indoors. The colors are good, yes? And this lighter will last much longer than the ones you stole at the park. Please stop doing that. This one looks so much cooler anyway._

_-Kurt"_

Todd laughed. He buried his face in his new sweater and laughed until the sobbing started back up.

* * *

><p>Kurt found a note in his locker when school started back up three days later.<p>

_"Roof. Lunch."_

He raised an eyebrow, but shrugged and mentally agreed. It could be important after all. What met him when he arrived, however, would be later described as 'hilariously terrifying'.

On the roof of Bayville High, Kurt found faint crackling noises and odd smoke. Alarmed, he trailed it to a spot behind the ventilation stack. There, he discovered Todd standing over a pile of burning math books, wearing his new sweater and gloves. He tossed his lighter in the air, caught it, smirked at Kurt.

"The colors are fuckin' fine, yo. I am one sleek mothafucker! But you ain't stoppin' me set shit on fire _that_ easy."

One hell of a way to say 'thank you'.


End file.
